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Jason Katims Is My Spirit Animal
I was home alone on a Friday night a couple of years ago, clicking through TV stations, bored and skeptical about my viewing choices, when I happened upon something that seemed pretty intimate and serious. It was the show, Friday Night Lights, which I didn’t really know much about. The particular scene was one with…
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Rookie Season
I never thought I’d give up writing for anything, but as 2014 winds down, I look back on all the stuff I did in the name of collage and I get the same excitable newcomer rush that I did when I started writing and publishing over twenty years ago. Like my first (often naive) forays…
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Three Things
Friends! Some news tidbits I should share with you… 1. I’ve started a new reading series. Yeah, I know there are already dozens of others in this little town, but I think my idea is pretty sweet. I’m calling it Two Essays & A Poem. It will happen whenever I get the gumption to set one…
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Time to Read
Friends! I have two readings coming up very soon. After spending so much time and energy on my collaging adventure this year, I’m excited to get back behind the mic, especially on Wednesday, Oct 22nd with Miriam Toews, who is one of my all-time favorite writers and people. I just adore her. Also: The great…
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Collage Summer Heats Up

Every time someone asks me what’s been going on, I usually shrug and say, oh, more of the same. Or something like that. I think it’s about time I just fess up: I’m busy as f$ck! I go to work and then I come home and “go to work” again, until way past my bedtime.…
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Pre-VIDA Call to Action!
I found this ad in a 1964 women’s magazine. Almost fifty years before VIDA, Faith Baldwin tried to give female writers a kick in the butt.
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LitHop #2
The gigantic literary party of Portland, LitHop PDX, happens tomorrow night. I’m so psyched. It’s turning into something like a book geeks Mardi Gras (show us your poems, we’ll throw you some beads). So fun. Go to the website and check the schedule. And keep in mind that me and my partners Bryan Coffelt and…
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What’s Inside the Sorrow?
Oh, man, do I love Emily Kendal Frey’s new book, Sorrow Arrow (Octopus Books). I also love the cover art by Treasure Frey (no relation). But I wonder… what is the void in the middle doing there? Is that the sadness? Is it a frame for something missing? A fill in the blank? Is it…
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A Postcard From David Rakoff
Recently, I was cleaning up around my desk at Powell’s, where I have now worked for over sixteen years. As you can imagine, it can get pretty messy, especially the leaning towers of review copies, the piles of zine and chapbook submissions, and the various press releases from publishers. Sometimes I find some really cool…